The judge wrote in his decision that HTC Corp.'s (TPE:2498) four targeted Android handsets were not in infringement of Apple's patents on swipe-to-unlock as those patents never should have been granted in the first place.

The ruling comes in a London lawsuit brought by Apple against HTC. The ruling is a dangerous for Apple as it threatens to invalidate previous wins over Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd.'s (KSC:005930) and others in Germany and the Netherlands, which forced the Android device-makers to modify their products.

His decision echoes my own analysis remarkably closely, citing technology from Neonode Inc. (NEON), who included slide to unlock on an icon in its patented July 2004 n1m smartphone:

Similar prior art referenced by HTC convinced the judge that Apple had habitually trolled the patent waters, patenting technology that other companies had already brought to market at the time of its filings. Two other key software patents were also found to be invalid due to obviousness and/or prior art.

The results are important, but not terribly surprising.

After all late Apple CEO and co-founder Steven P. Jobs famously brazenly bragged of his company's lust for stealing others' work, "Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

II. Bye, Bye Apple Patents, Bye, Bye Lawsuits

The decision decimates in the EU much of the patent stable Apple has tried to leverage to bully Android smartphone makers in the U.S. and EU alike. In total the judge invalidated three EU Apple patents:

EP1964022 (A1) "UNLOCKING A DEVICE BY PERFORMING GESTURES ON AN UNLOCK IMAGE" (swipe to unlock)

The judge was particularly taken by the abundant evidence of invalidity of the slide to unlock patent. The Neonode n1m in 2004 displayed a padlock icon with the words "right sweep to unlock". Yet astonishingly an Apple patent filed over a year later was granted. Apple lawyers would later argue that the inclusion of a capacitive touch screen (the n1m used resistive touch) to detect the swipe more accurately and a different icon were sufficient to seize broad ownership of all swipe to unlock on touch devices.

[Image Source: YouTube]

The British judge blasted that line of thinking calling the inclusion of a slider "obvious" and saying that the advances in touch detection did not call for a repatenting of the same technology.

Apple issued a statement to the BBC, "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

But according to the British judge, it was Apple who stole others' work, not the other way around. Apple refused comment on whether it considered it an acceptable practice to steal others' work, a practice it has repeatedly condemned others for supposedly doing.

HTC was ecstatic, commenting, "HTC is pleased with the ruling, which provides further confirmation that Apple's claims against HTC are without merit. We remain disappointed that Apple continues to favour competition in the courtroom over competition in the marketplace."

A single Apple patent -- EP2059868 (A2) -- the "bounce animation" patent survived, but the British judge narrowed its scope saying that that a somewhat similar animation on some of HTC's smartphones was sufficiently different that it was not in violation.

III. Editorial: U.S. Invalidation is Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near You

Andrew Alton, a lawyer at UK firm Urquhart-Dykes and Lord -- a firm which used to work for Apple -- comments, "National patent laws thematically are very similar, but can be applied very differently. Not only are the tests different but also the evidence that can be introduced in different courts varies. If the Neonode wasn't released in the US it might not be able to be cited there. So the fact that Apple has lost this particular patent battle in the UK shouldn't mean it should be seen to have lost the global war."

Indeed, while the EU court justly found that Apple has received an invalid patent on a technology which its competitors were selling years before, U.S. patent law may be structured in such a way in which courts allow it to ban would-be competitors on the grounds of technology that had been released years before overseas, assuming those competitors did not release devices to the U.S. market or file for a U.S. patent.

There's swipe-to-unlock, the same technology Apple reworded and repatented, effectively "stealing" (as Apple would say) Neonode's novel idea and claiming it for its own.

I correctly predicted the EU invalidation, and I would expect the U.S. court system, despite the Android OEMs less-than-stellar legal representation and Apple's great level of influence in the Californian court system, will eventually come around to reason and invalidate this patent.

After all, the U.S. court system has to maintain some semblance of competence and non-biased behavior.

Then again, I don't expect Apple to give up without a fight. After all, Apple has been badly beaten by Android in market share. Apple attorney Josh Krevitt sums up his company's plight, remarking, "Samsung is always one step ahead, launching another product and another product."

As HTC said in its comment, Apple, despite virtually standing still interface-wise hopes to compensate by courtroom thuggery. Unfortunately for it, much of its technology appears to be invalid and borrowed (or "stolen" to use Apple's own terminology).

Romneycare was fine because it was a state program, and as a sovereign state they were within their rights to reform healthcare. For their state.

The problem with Obamacare is that it shatters the small limited Government with separated powers that the Constitution decreed this Union to be.

There's nothing praiseworthy about this situation. The only ones who could possibly support it are either diehard Liberals who think the ends justify the means, or those too ignorant to truly understand the implications of what just happened to our once free country.

To me, the problem is that regardless of intentions, the federal govt is too large to do anything efficiently and makes a money pit of anything they attempt. The freegin madness has to stop. What part of "Trillion dollar deficits" are they not getting?

Exactly. What Government are all these people supporting Obamacare looking at? Medicare bankrupt. Social Security bankrupt. They can't even run the Postal Service! It's going bankrupt too. The whole country is bankrupt!

But Healthcare, one sixth of our economy? Oh yeah, they'll run that really well I'm sure /sarcasm.

Of course the whole point of Obamacare is wealth redistribution, so the less efficient the better in these peoples minds.

So? State governments are going broke as well. Why mention the postal service when it hasn't been run by the gov in years? Why is mandating people get healthcare run by private corporations "wealth redistribution"?

And better yet, what makes you think that conservatives/republicans and their ideals are the solution to this problem? Unless you've figured out how to overcome the laws of thermodynamics you, liberals, libertarians, conservatives or whatever or whoever else aren't going to solve the issues that plague this nation, nor what ills the rest of the world.

The Postal Service is a Government agency, so I don't know what you're talking about.

The USPS is created as a government agency under Title 39, Section 101.1 of the United States Code which states, in part:

(a) The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. The costs of establishing and maintaining the Postal Service shall not be apportioned to impair the overall value of such service to the people.

Furthermore the Postal Service is exempt from paying federal taxes. Sound like a private industry to you? Yeah right. There is also a yearly "Postal Service Fund" where Congress gives the service money.

How in the hell you can sit there and claim it's not being run by the Government is absurd. Study history.

quote: And better yet, what makes you think that conservatives/republicans and their ideals are the solution to this problem?

I wouldn't accept any solution that sweeps aside the Constitution in one fell swoop, no matter what side it comes from.

Funny you talk about the Postal Service, considering it ran, without a single taxpayer dime, for over 250 years. Problem is, that thing called E-mail rendered its business model obsolete, and FedEx (which coincidentally tried to do what the postal service did over a century ago, and couldn't make a dime on it...) and UPS have eaten too much of the package delivery market. And there is a really simple fix: Cut Saturday delivery. Funny thing is, Congress refuses to want to cut any services, even if they are expensive and not needed...

As for the ACA, its better then what we currently have, and will probably be no more cheaper or more expensive at the end of the day. A "better" solution would have been to unify every single government healthcare buracracy (Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, Tricare, and the like) all under one unit. You'd save a few billion just on adminstration savings alone.

Finally, bringing up Social Security, when the funds are stolen from to help balence the year over year budget, and the tax that pays for it made void during any economic slowdown, guess what? You're going to have a funding problem. As designed, the program was and would remain fully solvent. Blame the politicians for borrowing money from the fund during its surplus, and cutting taxes into the fund during the deficit, for the current state of the fund.

Finally, bringing up the economy as a whole:1946: ~132% Debt-to-GDP1980: ~32% Debt-to-GDP1992: ~68% Debt-to-GDP2000: ~60% Debt-to-GDP [Budget at about a break-even]2009: ~90% Debt-to-GDP [Budget at a ~$950 Billion Defecit and major economic recession]

Notice how everything went to hell during Regan? His budget policy of cutting taxes while increasing government spending, shock, does not work. Say what you will, at least Democrats offer up tax increases to pay for their new spending...

You're an idiot. Everything went to hell under Carter! Reagan inherited a worst economy than Obama did in '08. I love how you people cite ONE statistic and claim things went to "hell" when in fact Reagan brought us out of the brink. The largest peacetime growth of the US economy happened under Reagan. Hell under Reagan inflation went from 10% to 4%.

federal spending during Reagan's two terms (FY 1981-88) averaged 22.4% GDP, well above the 20.6% GDP average from 1971 to 2009

In addition, the public debt rose from 26.1% GDP in 1980 to 41.0% GDP by 1988. In dollar terms, the public debt rose from $712 billion in 1980 to $2,052 billion in 1988, a three-fold increase.

The parallel tax system hit middle class Americans the hardest by reducing their deductions and effectively raising their taxes. Meanwhile, the highest income earners (with incomes exceeding $1,000,000) were proportionately less affected, thereby shifting the tax burden away from the richest 0.5% to poorer Americans.

Seems like you're only bringing up the negatives for some reason. And ignoring the explosive economic growth, the massive cutting of inflation under Reagan, and the prosperity of the nation as a whole. The 2.4 million private sector jobs added to the economy per-year under Reagain.

quote: The parallel tax system hit middle class Americans the hardest by reducing their deductions and effectively raising their taxes.

Ummm where are you getting this from? Reagan made tax changes that eliminated the Federal Income tax burden for nearly 40% of all Americans. In fact as much as it might pain Conservatives to admit this, but because of Reagan we have nearly half the country today not paying income taxes.

People like Gamer, and probably you, refuse to understand that you CAN lower taxes and actually gross MORE federal revenue. Federal Income taxes only make up about a third of the Fed revenue. When you lower taxes, you spur economic growth, and in turn the Government grosses MORE revenue. Every time taxes have been lowered, there has been a corresponding increase in federal revenue.

Liberals will bring up Clinton and his great "balanced budgets". Well what did Clinton do in 1997? Yup, he cut taxes!

"Everything went to hell under Carter! Reagan inherited a worst economy than Obama did in '08."

True Reagan inherited a mess and it made Reagans #'s look much worse than they should have been, but you gotta give Obama that same slack. Obama inherited a worse mess than Reagen by far though. Granted he did crap with it, most of what we are dealing with today would have happened to anyone that was elected. Even Reagan... It was unstopable as of January 2009.

I agree that Romney is the better candidate, but there is not promise of his election. There are not enough middle ground moderates in this country to guarantee his election.

To many extremist liberals and conservatives fighting over power. Not enough people willing to do the correct thing, for the correct reason at the correct time. And I am NOT talking about political correctness. Political correctness is anything but correct MOST of the time. I'm talking about proper correctness. Doing what's right regardless of popular opinion.

1)The supreme court said Obamacare complied with the consititution. Who the hell are you to say otherwise?

2)The key question is: do you want to help poor people get healthcare or not? If it's NOT then just say so. You have the right to, you'll burn in hell but it's your right.However if you want to help poor people there's not a million ways to do it. There's the obamacare way, or the Canadian way. And take it from a Canadian, ours is way worst.

With this one you are spot on. The United States of America was once "The land of the free". Now we are becoming "The land of the free if the government says it's ok". Tyranny is taking hold in this country and fear is driving it. I am going to be one of those people who the Feds will have to come after for refusing to participate. Now if Utah wants to come up with their own, better, version of doing things, I'll join in.

I have in the past, disagreed strongly with many of your points. But we have one thing in common, neither of us are mindless sheep. This country could use more people like us...

--now everything from crutches to pacemakers will cost more. How does this save me money?

-raising the tax threshold from 7.5 to 10 percent before you can deduct high medical expenses.

-limiting flexible spending accounts to $2500

--These are pre-tax accounts that many families with special needs children or the disabled use to pay for medical care. It was unlimited before. Now its capped, and they will have less money to pay for their care.

-Raising the top dividend rate rises from 15 to 43.4 percent, and top capital gains rate from 10 to 23.8 percent.

--Im not rich, and this is going to kil my investments. Im pulling everything out before I lose any gains to this absurd tax hike.